they mirror practically every corner of our land to-day. Why is it,
then, that the people make such a sorry exhibition of themselves
when they attempt to sing the patriotic songs of our country? Is it
the tunes or the words or we ourselves?

BEGINNING WITH A STRIKING STATEMENT. When the thought expressed in the
first sentence of an article is sufficiently unusual, or is presented in
a sufficiently striking form, it at once commands attention. By
stimulating interest and curiosity, it leads the average person to read
on until he is satisfied.

A striking statement of this sort may serve as the first sentence of one
of the other types of beginning, such as the narrative or the
descriptive introduction, the quotation, the question, or the direct
address. But it may also be used entirely alone.

Since great size is impressive, a statement of the magnitude of
something is usually striking. Numerical figures are often used in the
opening sentences to produce the impression of enormous size. If these
figures are so large that the mind cannot grasp them, it is well, by
means of comparisons, to translate them into terms of the reader's own
experience. There is always danger of overwhelming and confusing a
person with statistics that in the mass mean little or nothing to him.

To declare in the first sentence that something is the first or the only
one of its kind immediately arrests attention, because of the universal
interest in the unique.

An unusual prediction is another form of striking statement. To be told
at the beginning of an article of some remarkable thing that the future